AU 101: Crowding & War

[Theseus]

Goal: Psychotic bastards, here's your chance!! At least 1 city must be captured in each aggressive phase (with some crossover allowed): Archer, Horseman, Swordsman, Knight, Cavalry, Tanks, MA... however far you get before the win. Gold star for Warrior too. Must win owning all GWs.

Settings: Standard, continents, 80% water, 8 civs, warm, normal, 3B, raging, Emperor. Not culturally linked. Conquest and domination wins.

Civ: Japan

Notes: Can we say Caravels and Galleons?
__________________________

Here ya go, boys and girls, the first day of classes. Now, remember, no fighting... errr, scratch that.

May the meanest mofo come forward, please.

(Wait'll you see the starting position!! First try, too.)

[W4r_Machine]

What exactly must happen? Winning the game by conqest--that I got and geting all the wonders. What else?

At least 1 city must be captured in each aggressive phase (with some crossover allowed): Archer, Horseman, Swordsman, Knight, Cavalry, Tanks, MA... however far you get before the win. Gold star for Warrior too.

Say what?

Sorry, I'm a idy0t

[FrustratedPoet]

Most games we play as warmongers end up playing out in several phases.

First there is the early Archer rush to gain good expansion territory and early techs.
Second there is the Horseman attack. This also gets techs and creates a big army to upgrade to the big force of....
Knights. Lots of these will destroy enemy Civs.
Cavalry is next ... an extension of the Knight phase really, but if the other Civs are catching in tech you will need the extra firepower. You really should be in control of the game by now (but in an Emperor game I probably won't be ).
Then you will progress through Tanks and Modern Armour.

I think Theseus just wants us to follow the warmonger opening right through the ages to it's logical (and bloody) conclusion while being very thorough along the way.

Correct? or not?

About the GW's: do you mean all the GW's currently in existence when you win the game, or ALL the GW's in ALL ages?? Clearly, if it is the latter then a few people might have to restrain their conquest instincts to avoid winning too early. I think some clarification on this point is needed.

[W4r_Machine]

Thanks FP. Now I'm enlightened

[FrustratedPoet]

If I was right .... I'm often wrong.

[Theseus]

Yep, FP got it. AGGRESSION, at each significant improvement in offensive military capabilities.

All GWs in existence at the date of winning... which can be either conquest (all AI civs destroyed) or domination (correct me if I'm wrong, but 2/3 of both total world population and land (don;t know if that includes coastal tiles).

I've just played a little of it... I feel like Conan the Barbarian.

[nbarclay]

So much for the idea of trying the new patch shortly after it comes out. Between finishing the CivFanatics GOTM and playing this one, it looks like I'll be stuck at 1.21f for a while. And that's not even thinking about MT4 or the possibility of going back and finishing MT2 (which I interrupted to play MT3).

Are "horseman" and "swordsman" intended to be regarded as two separate eras? I've always regarded them as contemporaries to be mixed and matched as the mood and situation dictate. I think a single "horseman/swordsman" era makes more sense, leaving it up to the player to decide whether it makes more sense to use one, the other, or both during that era.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Sorry, Nathan, couldn't help myself, even knowing the new patch was coming.

On the bright side, I think most are going to realize that the best way to play this out is with sheer aggression... the point of the trial is to test how quickly an 'unbalanced' approach can result in a win. Thus, this should be a shorter game than usual.

(Did I just tip my philosophical hand?)

Re aggressive eras: I already crossed the "Archer" and "Swordsman" eras... I purposely used an Archer for my second city capture, however, to stay true to the theme. Clearly there's crossover; I suggest everyone play to their optimum ability, with an effort towards respecting the theme.

First spoiler: First city taken in 2950BC.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Sorry, Nathan, couldn't help myself, even knowing the new patch was coming.

On the bright side, I think most are going to realize that the best way to play this out is with sheer aggression... the point of the trial is to test how quickly an 'unbalanced' approach can result in a win. Thus, this

On Monarch and below, I've always been skeptical of the hypothesis that all-out aggression leads to faster wins. The times when a civ can really munch through opponents are when there's an imbalance between fast-moving offensive units and the defenders they face, such as knights against pikemen or cavalry against musketmen. By focusing on building and research early, I can get a tech lead and get to the key fast-mover techs faster, which I think can more than make up for a relative lack of early aggression.

Out of my last five Monarch-level games (two Apolyton tourneys, MT1, MT3, and the June CivFanatics GOTM), I've been in a position to dominate or conquer the world with cavalry in four of them using that approach. The only exception was the June GOTM, where I decided early that my focus would be an early space launch. (Note that in MT3, I didn't actually invade with cavalry, but if I hadn't been committed to wait, that game would almost certainly have smashed my record for earliest domination victory.)

On Emperor, there is a lot more merit to a militaristic early game since out-researching the AIs by any significant margin in the ancient era is next to impossible. But if the early warfare can be successfully concluded early enough to build up infrastructure, depending on the map, there can still be potential to create a research monster that can get Military Tradition and either Navigation or Magnetism a good bit before the AIs are ready for the industrial era.

My preliminary game plan for this game is

(1) Do an early archer strike to hurt a nearby opponent and satisfy the "one city captured in each phase" requirement, but don't go for a kill. Also build lots of temples for culture, and lots of barracks.

(2) Try to take out or all but take out an opponent with swordsmen and/or horsemen. If there's time, I might go for two, but I'm not really expecting it. (I might consider carving pieces out of two empires if we end up near cultural nobodies, but I don't like razing and I don't like having my cities flip.)

(3) Build up some infrastructure for a while toward the end of the ancient era.

(4) Conquer the remainder of the home continent, and possibly some nearby land, with samurai.

(5) Go for the Cavalry/Galleon combination to try to hit the rest of the world before they enter the industrial era.

Whether this preliminary plan will actually survive once I see the map and have to face my opponents, I don't know. But after MT2, I think it has promise.

By the way, with the goal of controlling all the wonders, I really wish domination victory were turned off. I hate razing, but the way the game is set up may not leave much choice. (Or would it be considered acceptable to win a domination victory but keep playing on to capture the remaining wonders, with the official year of victory for the purposes of this "class" coming when all the wonders are in my hands?)

Nathan

[Theseus]

Sure, dominate and then capture the GWs.... for 'trial' purposes I think that's fine.

Tougher, and more elegant, I think, to capture the GWs and then dominate. I don;t intend to raze too much though... rather, capture city-pairs to fend of flips and have access to harbors. I envision a home continent, one or more captured continents, and patches of Japanese colonies across the map.

[W4r_Machine]

So I guess we cant raze cities...

Is player re-start allowed/ON in this game? I mean, If you kill a civ too early...do they re-spawn?

[edit=forget the razing part of my post]

[Theseus]

W4r,

No, it's OK to raze, I just meant that MY game strategy (for now) will be to avoid both over-razing and too much city capturing.

Player re-start is ON... does anyone know the mechanism for this? What's the latest an AI civ can re-spawn? (Very good question, W4r, given the point of this trial!)

[Theseus]

SPOILERS BELOW

[Theseus]

It just occurred to me that re-spawning is a SERIOUS issue here.

As I planned on using the Arrian Deception, I have been a TOTAL bastard to the two neighbors on the founding continent, having knocked them back to respectively 2 and 1 cities as of 800BC. Thus far, the waves of aggression have included Warrior, Archer, and Swordsman.

BUT, if I wipe them out, and they get re-spawned, will I have a rep problem when they meet other civs?

Do I need to trim them back to one city, and wait until re-spawning is no longer possible?

Or, do I say 'damn the torpedoes' and just go for it anyway?

[W4r_Machine]

They shouldn't remember our previous transgression, but i'm betting they will.

I think I read somewhere here that they re-spawn even stronger.

I'm gonna wait till the whole island is colonized by me till I destroy both. Although they might re-spawn on another island which is very risky.

Spoiler:
Britain is great! I keep razing York but she still insist on re-building it.